16/7/15: Thinking of Nama, don't forget them IBRC junior IOUs sale...

Having just posted on Nama's latest basking in the spotlight here, I came across this good old Namawinelake analysis of yet another debacle Nama was a player in: the IBRC junior notes sale.

Yes, that is yet another EUR440 million wasted, burned through, by the exceptionally skilled (otherwise, why would they enjoy such lavish pay) business brains in Nama that are also so concerned for maximising returns to taxpayers?

16/7/15: Nama: The Gift of Giving That Keeps on Giving...

While Greece is limping to its Bailout 3.0, our national heroes at Nama are busy fighting massive (California-sized) forest fires.

The Northern Ireland story (covered on this blog here) is refusing to go away:

1. An academic legal eagle exposition from the U.S. It's in NYTimes, which is on the 'radar' of all our development agencies (the folks that do have Good Minister's ear to whisper into).
2. And Irish News is covering the statement issued by Mr. Ian Coulter, the former managing partner of Belfast law firm Tughans. Sluggerotool.com covers same with extra details. Same covered in the Journal.ie piece here.
3. A good article from the Irish Times on Cerberus (the fund in the middle of Nama's Northern Ireland's case) and its use of Irish companies as vehicles for purchasing some EUR19 billion worth of assets. "Each of the Irish companies owns hundreds of millions, or in some cases billions, of euro in assets but has no employees in Ireland and in some instances, pays no corporation tax here. Cerberus has established at least 10 such companies in Ireland since it started its European property loan shopping spree in 2013, all of which appear to be owned by Promontoria, a Dutch fund that is 100 per cent owned by Cerberus Capital Management." 
4. Another person in the middle of Norther Irish deal - Mr. Frank Cushnahan was, it appears, a 'serial director' in "over 30 companies" according to this article in the Irish Times. Which, obviously, qualified him to advise Nama.
5. Deputy Mick Wallace went on to add to the story, claiming that Nama was aware of the suspicious aspects of transaction in the North, 'since January'. Nama categorically denied this.
6. The UK National Crime Agency will investigate Deputy Wallace's claims.

Meanwhile, back at the foot of this mountain of proverbial... err... at home in Dublin, revelations that our Government appointments to Nama posts could have been... surprise-surprise... political. Who would have thought this much?

There is a documentary trail now to prove that Nama was a party to Government-related discussions about 'fixing' the land market in the Republic. In this, the State's objective of attempting to control the supply of land for development and improve saleability of assets is uncovered and Nama cooperation is identified. Nothing like manipulating the markets as a direct policy objective, folks. We had, of course, back in June this year, Deputy Mick Wallace's allegations that Nama has some unorthodox dealings with the rental sector in Ireland, allegedly "a “cartel” of big property owners had driven up rental costs in Dublin" as “A small group of players now control a large chunk of the rental market in Dublin"... He also said Nama likes to sell properties in big blocks “that only investment funds, vulture funds, mostly from America, have the money to be buying”.

A good old article from Bloomberg archives covering another Nama deal fiasco. The deal was a dodo: Morgan Stanley bought about 220 million pounds of loans to West Properties for "about 65 million pounds ($103 million), or a 70 percent discount". Nama does not sell properties to parties connected to original developers... you know...

And to top it all, we have a new load of revelations from Mick Wallace, TD on further fun-under-the-sun relating to the Holy Grail of Irish Solutions to Irish Problems: the claim made under "Dáil privilege, ... a person in construction who wanted to exit NAMA and was asked to pay €15,000 “in a bag – in cash.”

Wallace also referenced recently the Chicago Spire case (covered earlier here in my compendium of 10 worst deals on Nama's record). A quote: "I would like NAMA to explain its approach when a bidder went to buy not the loans but the debt of the Chicago Spire, which was at $78 million plus costs which brought it to approximately $93 million. An investor sought to buy the debt, and this was every penny that was owed to the bank. This was not the reduced value, but the par value. In other words, this investor was prepared to pay the debt in full but NAMA gave it to Jones Lang LaSalle in New York to sell. This was a site in Chicago. Even if NAMA thought it could get more for it, it was not in New York that it would have got it. It would have been interesting if it had marketed it in Chicago. Why could NAMA not accept the debt being bought out? It is estimated that it was sold for $35 million. NAMA refused $78 million, plus the cost, and it accepted a figure in the region of €35 million. That was claimed to be in the interests of the taxpayer."

It is worth repeating that Nama has denied any wrongdoing in any of the above cases and has now requested that Gardai investigate Deputy Wallace's claims. All other players in the Northern Ireland saga also denied allegations.

Of course, when it comes to Nama asking Gardai to investigate N. Irish deal allegations and denying any knowledge of wrongdoing, without putting their intent and their denial into question, one might recall that Nama is fully aware of another wrongdoing relating to IBRC interest rate overcharging (as detailed and documented here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/06/11615-full-letter-concerning-ibrc.html). But so far, Nama is in no rush to address the matter it has been notified about some ages ago (see details here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/06/12615-anglo-overcharging-saga-ganley.html). Lest we forget, NAMA was the biggest buyer of the IBRC loans to which the interest overcharging applied, and, it is alleged (see here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/06/1062015-bombshell-goes-off-on-anglo.html), this overcharging continued for loans transferred to Nama and still continues, despite the High Court Ruling of October 2014.

15/7/15: Greece is Not Unique in Dissing EU Commitments

In previous two posts, I explored couple of angles on the famous Trust thingy that, allegedly, Greece so massively lacks. But, of course, my comparatives related to the 'peripheral' euro states, mostly Ireland. You can use the same two charts to draw conclusions on comparing Greek performance to other states, but the question still remains: outside the 'periphery' just how much Trust currency is there in circulation in the EU?

Take countries that are not in the group of borrowers from the IMF. There should be plenty of Trust to go around amongst them and the EU. And this means there should be plenty of agreement between their policies and the policies suggested to them by the Commission, especially those aimed at addressing that major burner of Trust - failure to comply with core fiscal criteria.

We can take a snapshot of this 'metric' of Trust by looking at how severely do EU member states deviate in their policies from the Commission prescriptions. This 'metric', after all, is an exact replica of the arguments advanced in the Eurogroup in the context of accusing Greece of wasting EU's trust.

So here is a handy chart, from the EU Commission:

What the above shows is that back in 2013 all of the EU states who were issued with 'country-specific recommendations' concerning their poor fiscal performance opted to ignore these recommendations. That is some Trust, there.

Between 2011-2012 and 2013 the extent of non-compliance did not decline (despite all the talk about austerity and structural reforms), but rose both on average and specifically in 10 out of 14 countries covered by these recommendations. That's some more Trust, right there.

On average, in 2013, some 43% of all EU Commission recommendations were not implemented by the states that are so distinctly Trustworthy from Greece, that Greece was singled out as a special case by the Eurogroup and the Euro Council.

Some of the worst offenders was Germany, and its pal (in berating Greece) Lithuania, plus the usual suspects of Italy and France.

Now, I am not a fan of EU Commission recommendations. But the fact is: Greece is by far not unique in terms of 'reforms' fatigue or lack of engagement with the EU Commission proposals on fiscal adjustments.

15/7/15: Is it Trust or Fiscal Performance? Greece v Excessive Deficit Procedures

As noted in the previous post, that Trustless Greece apparently is a better example of European policies of internal devaluation at work than the best-in-class Ireland. At least by metric of competitiveness.

But what about Fiscal Trust? After all, there is a unifying metric for that one - the European Commission own Excessive Deficit Procedure. And here is a handy table from EU Commission own presentation on the topic:

Yes, yes... a little help. Since 1997 (that is across the Celtic Tiger era boom too), Ireland was on the penalty bench with EU in relation to breaking fiscal rules for 11 years. Greece - also 11 years. One has zero Trust in its EU account. The other has Fort Knox worth of that 'hard' EU currency...

Either the Rule is dodgy or something's fishy in the arithmetic...

15/7/15: Is it Trust or Competitiveness? Greece v Unit Labour Costs

Remember hard currency of Europe - no not the euro - Trust? And remember how Greeks lack that currency because of failed reforms and incomplete adjustments?

Here's a nice chart from the EU Commission itself showing changes in economic competitiveness (the EU fetishised) metric of Unit Labour Costs.

In this, untrustworthy Greece is more competitive in 2013-2015 than the best-in-class Ireland. 

So if the internal devaluations work their magic, as the EU seems to believe, then by this metric, Greece should have been a roaring success story... with a surplus of Trust to spare some for Ireland.

Then, again, the EU won't notice other factors at play in determining GDP growth. The idiosyncratic ones, like, say, corporate tax inversions and 'knowledge development boxes' or (whispering) taxation double-sandwiches for lunch... Because everything is about Trust in Europe...

14/7/15: IMF Update on Greek Debt Sustainability

Predictably... following yet another leak... the IMF has been forced to publish its update to the 'preliminary' Greek debt sustainability note from early July. Here it is in its full glory or, rather, ugliness: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2015/cr15186.pdf?hootPostID=2cd94f17236d717acd9949448d794045.

As discussed in my earlier post here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/07/14715-brave-new-world-of-imf-debt.html, Greek debt to GDP ratio is now expected to "The financing need through end-2018 is now estimated at Euro 85 billion and debt is expected to peak at close to 200 percent of GDP in the next two years, provided that there is an early agreement on a program."

Which means that "Greece’s debt can now only be made sustainable through debt relief measures that go far beyond what Europe has been willing to consider so far."

Under the current programme (running from November 2012 through March 2016) the IMF projected "debt of 124 percent of GDP by 2020 and “substantially below” 110 percent of GDP by 2022", specifically, the projected debt at 2022 was 105%. Now, the Fund estimates 2022 debt at 142% of GDP.

Furthermore, "Greece cannot return to markets anytime soon at interest rates that it can afford from a medium-term perspective."

Worse, on the current path "Gross financing needs would rise to levels well above what they were at the last review (and above the 15 percent of GDP threshold deemed safe) and continue rising in the long term."

And IMF pours cold water over its own dream-a-little target of 3.5% primary surpluses for Greece. "Greece is expected to maintain primary surpluses for the next several decades of 3.5 percent of GDP. Few countries have managed to do so." Note the word decades! Now, IMF rejoins Planet Reality raising "doubts about the assumption that such targets can be sustained for prolonged periods."

In short - as I said earlier, politics not economics drive Eurogroup decision making on Greece. The IMF is now facing a stark choice: either engage with the euro area leadership in structuring writedowns (potentially also extending maturities of its own loans to Greece) or walk away from the Troika set up (and still extend maturities on its own loans to Greece).

Little compassion for the Fund, though - they made this bed themselves. Now's time to sleep in it...

14/7/15: The Brave New World of IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis

According to the secret IMF report released to the European leaders prior to the Sunday-Monday summits, "The dramatic deterioration in debt sustainability points to the need for debt relief on a scale that would need to go well beyond what has been under consideration to date - and what has been proposed by the ESM."

This is reported by Reuters here.

Per IMF report,that completes the Debt Sustainability Analysis released earlier this month (see the link to the original published report here) and that already concluded that Greek debts were not sustainable, accounting for the effects of capital controls and other recent factors, to address sustainability of Greek debt into 2020s:

1. The EU (euro area) will need to extend graced period on Greek debt repayments to the ECB and the euro area to 30 years from now, and (not or)
2. Dramatically extend maturity of debt given to Greece under previous programmes and the new upcoming programme.

Barring the above - which are not in the proposed Bailout 3.0 package - the euro area member states will have to "make explicit annual fiscal transfers to the Greek budget or accept "deep upfront haircuts" on their loans to Athens". In other words - either there will have to be direct aid or direct up front write downs to the debt. These too are not in the current proposal for Bailout 3.0.

Despite this damning analysis, the IMF continues to insist that it will be a part of the new arrangement and will have a new agreement with Greece comes March 2016 when the current one ends. In other words, political arm of the IMF (aka Madame Lagarde and national representatives of the EU) are now directly, head-on, and forcefully in a contradiction to their own technical team assessment of the situation. Madame Lagarde was present at the Sunday-Monday meetings and produced no apparent progress on the what her own technical team says will be a necessary part of any sustainable solution to the crisis.

There is an added component to all of this: IMF analysis refers to a significant deterioration in banking sector situation in Greece since the introduction of capital controls. Which makes sense - there are no new deposits coming into the system and, one can easily assume, loans due are not being serviced. This, in turn, begs a question as to how realistic are the EU-own assessments that the Greek banks will require EUR12-25 billion in capital.

How dire is the situation with Greek debt?

IMF new report projects debt to GDP ratio peaking at above 200% - which is bang on with my estimates previously - up on the previous IMF estimate of peak at 177%. By 2022, IMF estimated Greek debt will decline to 142% of GDP (that is back from the previous 'secret' report linked above). Now, the Fund says debt will stay at 170% of GDP even by 2022.

As Retuers reports, "Gross financing needs would rise to above the 15 percent of GDP threshold deemed safe and continue rising in the long term".

"In the laconic technocratic language of IMF officialdom, the report noted that few countries had ever managed to sustain for several decades the primary budget surplus of 3.5 percent of GDP expected of Greece." In other words, the holly grail of massive and continuous long-term primary surpluses - the sole pillar underpinning previous positive assessments of the Greek debt sustainability by the IMF - is now gone. Realism prevails - no country can sustain such surpluses indefinitely. Surprisingly, IMF continues to insist on 3.5% primary surpluses target.

As a reminder, IMF has called for official sector debt write downs for Greece in the past. It still insists on the same (per technical team), but does nothing from the political leadership point of view.

Conclusion: IMF is now fully torn between its political wing - dominated by the EU representation and leadership - and its technical side. Unlike a unified and functional World Bank (led by the US), the IMF has fallen into the European orbit of dysfunctional politicking and funding programmes that are far from consistent with IMF-own standards. (To see some evidence of this, read this excellent essay from Bruegel). 

IMF's role in the Greek bailout 3.0 will go down in history as a direct participation in the wilful re-writing of the European system of governance to embrace politicised leadership over calm and effective economic policy structuring. As per Eurogroup, there is no longer any doubt that the euro area leadership is wilfully incapable of resolving the Greek crisis. Incompetence no longer counts - the euro area finance ministers and prime ministers had all necessary information to arrive at the only logical conclusion: debt writedowns are needed and are needed upfront. They opted to ignore these so politics can prevail over economics and finance, allowing for subsequent consolidation of the euro area systems and institutions without a clear path for any member state to deviate from such.

Greece is just the first roadkill on this path.


Update: WSJ covers the topic of IMF dilemma.

14/7/15: Ifo Sinn: Euro Agreement Doesn’t Really Help Greece

Ifo's Hans Werner Sinn on Monday Eurogroup and Euro Council agreements:

You can sense his frustration.

I can add that much of what is said above makes sense, although I do not think temporary Grexit is feasible. A normal, EU-facilitated Grexit with no timing terms attached is.

14/7/2015: And the Greek Debt Merry-Go-Round Spins & Spins...

In the latest world of EUlunacy, we have some interesting 'developments' on the Greek crisis front.

First up, this: per Irish Finance Minister Noonan, 'Greesolution' agreed Monday am will have 'no budgetary implications' for Ireland, although Ireland 'will be taking on new liabilities'.

Translated into Human language this means: no official increase in Government deficit, but new debt will be issued by Ireland to fund Greek bailout.

Using ESM key, our share of EUR86 billion bailout will be ca EUR1.41 billion. It might be slightly less or slightly more, depending on a range of factors.

But the point is simple: pre-Monday agreement, Ireland had two choices:

Choice 1: support Greek debt write downs. Which would have cost us the same EUR1.41 billion at most, but would have achieved a reduction in Greek debt. Alternatively, if it was structured via monetary financing (ECB-monetised write down) it could have cost us (and rest of EU) virtually nothing (the cost would have been carried out via ECB simply writing down its own assets and liabilities - a balance sheet exercise).

Choice 2: current agreement-envisioned new loans for Greece - which will require all euro area states chipping in to fund the bailout and thus will require Ireland borrowing funds in the markets, increasing our debt, and giving them as loans (more debt) to the already over-indebted Greece.

Minister Noonan et al opted for Choice 2 but claim there will be no cost to Ireland from doing so (presumably because assuming more debt is costless to the Minister). You judge…

Meanwhile, the FT published this handy graphic explaining where the money borrowed by Ireland et al and given as debt to Greece will be used:

Source: FT

• EUR29.7 billion of cash to be loaned to Greece will go to pay down the money borrowed by Greece under the privies EU lending schemes so that a merry-go-round of European policymaking can spin and spin. 
• EUR25 billion will go to the banks to cover damages done by previous merry-go-round schemes. 
• EUR17.2 billion will pay interest on past and current merry-go-round schemes. 
• EUR7.7 billion will go to the banks to cover potential runs by depositors scared of the merry-go-round schemes. 

In total, all but miserly EUR7 billion of new loans to Greece will go one way or the other to sustain unsustainable old loans.

My brain aches from European leaders' insistence on staying oblivious to the reality, my heart ache for European people forced to sustain this oblivion.

14/7/15: Arrears on IMF & No Samurai Bonds Trigger: Greek Bridge Financing Update

Yesterday, I covered the possible routes to structuring bridge financing for Greece (see this post with today's earlier update). Via WSJ, here is the list of debts coming due over July-August, inclusive of two payments to IMF that are now in arrears (see IMF statement below):

Source: http://graphics.wsj.com/greece-debt-timeline/

And the IMF statement from last night:

A point to note: Greece redeemed the Samurai bonds (Yen 20bn) yesterday. Which, effectively, means it avoided private sector bonds default trigger.

13/7/15: Sit Back and Watch That Eurogroup Unanimity Evaporate

Following the marathon meetings (14 hours-long Eurogroup followed by 17 hours-long Euro Council) the Greek 'deal' was heralded in the media and the markets as some sort of the Great Revelation - a solution to fix all prior non-solutions, a final fixing of the Greek economy and the end to all the endless bailouts of the past.

Of course, cynics noted that solving debt overhang (already officially recognised by the IMF as unsustainable) by issuing more debt may not be a good idea… but cynics are here to be ignored by the Euro optimists who define their own reality.

But never mind all the 'long run' stuff. Five hours into a 'unanimous' Eurogroup decision on Greece, there is neither much of a unanimity, nor much of a decision left.

Eurogroup agreed, amongst other things, that:

• Greece will be - in principle - granted new funding of some EUR82-86 billion. The future is preliminary and will have to be finalised to fully reflect the economic conditions deterioration since January, as well as other factors. In addition to fiscal funding, these money will also be used to recapitalize Greek banks (current running estimate is for EUR10-25 billion in recaps, but the actual amount will not be known until there is a full and 'comprehensive' assessment of the banks books (to be carried out in September-December 2015).
• While nothing is certain about this 'longer term' EUR82-86 billion package, there are immediate needs for funds that Greece has to meet. With today's missed IMF repayment, there's EUR4.934 billion due in the rest of July. There's EUR1.544 billion overdue from June. And there's EUR4.188 billion due in August. Total of EUR6.477 billion is due to the ECB alone. There is no expectation that the 'long term' package will be ready before much of this comes due, so Greece will clearly need a 'bridge financing' arrangement. There is an added 'complication': before ECB can be paid (a default on ECB will trigger a cascade of cross-defaults and a closing of the banks' oxygen line, the ELA), the IMF arrears have to be cleared in full. 

The 'bridge financing' should be a walk in the park, right? After all, there is a unanimous agreement to set new funding for the longer term, and a part of this is the recognition that before such an agreement is struck, there is a unanimous (one assumes) agreement that Greece needs to be helped through the intermediate period.

Unanimity bit

Today, there was a shorter Eurogroup meeting to sort that little bit of 'unanimity' out. And the conclusion was: err… no unanimity and:

1. A new delay in sorting out longer-term financing (from today's morning expectation of 2 weeks to more realistic 4 weeks); and
2. There is no agreement on bridge financing. Worse, per Dijsselbloem: "We looked at the issue of bridge financing because there are urgent needs and this process of finalising an agreement will take time… This is very complex, we looked at a number of possibilities, but there are technical, legal, financial and political issues to consider, so we have tasked an ad-hoc working group of technical experts to look into that".

Finland's Fin Min Alexander Stubb said that "Greek Bridge Financing Still an Open Question. I foresee those negotiations being very difficult because I don't see many countries having a mandate to give money without any conditions." Oops… as they say in Helsinki. Slovakia's Government has stated they oppose any lending to Greece, including both bridge and long term financing. Austria, Estonia, The Netherlands and a number of other countries will need to approve every move via their parliaments. All three been pretty sceptical on 'bridge financing' from July 6th on. Slovenia is set against the bridge funding too.

And then there's Germany - which is, for now, sitting pretty quiet on the topic, but don;t expect an easy push over from Merkel - Schäuble duo. After all, the latter has managed to square off with Mario Draghi on the topic of ECB operations in a nasty exchange yesterday.


Beyond the unanimity bit... logistics

Beyond the unanimity bit, there's a technicality or logistics of structuring the deal… bridge financing is hard to construct, given the Byzantine (actually far worse, by now) European institutions.

There are basically two possible options.

Option 1: Using EFSM bailout fund to loan money to Greece. The option is easier, as it does not require unanimity, but can be passed on the basis of QMV. The fund, however, does not have enough money to finance July-August liabilities due on the Greek side. Reportedly, the EFSM only has EUR11.5 billion available (although some reports put the figure at EUR13.2 billion). And EFSM is no longer an active lender, since it is superseded by another fund, the ESM. Even when the EFSM was operative, it was limited to co-funding bailouts with IMF involvement. IMF is not a party to any bridging loans arrangements, and indeed is not a party to the entire Bailout 3.0 package agreed 'in principal' this am. Added complication: EFSM can be activated by a qualified majority, but a QMV of EU28, not euro area alone. Back in 2011, Britain voted against the use of the EFSM to bail out Greece for a second time.

Option 2: Greece funding itself via issuance of T-bills, selling these to the banks with the banks using ECB ELA to finance these purchases. Which carries two problems with it. One, ECB is yet to hike ELA. Two, T-bills are short term bonds and Greece is constantly rolling over substantial quantity of them in the markets. Issuing more will clearly impair Greek Government ability to secure short term funding. And it will also likely trigger serious discontent within euro area 'core' states - the hawks that 'guard' ECB's prohibition on 'monetary financing'.

Option 3: A combination of Option 2 and bilateral loans. The problems, in addition to Option 2 is that some countries (Finland and Slovakia - explicitly, Germany and the Netherlands, for now implicitly) have ruled out participating in the scheme. Which makes such lending a tough sell for other member states. Italy stated already that it will only supply bilateral loans if all other euro area states do so.

Option 4: Using SMP profits accumulated at the ECB and in the national central banks from Greek bonds coupon payments to lend to Greece from ECB to repay ECB and IMF loans. Problem here is that 2014 profits still retained amount to EUR1.9 billion, while 2015 profits yet to be paid amount to 1.4 billion. Clearly not enough to close the gap.


Update 14/7/2015: FT blog on the Eurogroup technical paper outlining options for Greek bridge financing is here: http://www.ft.com/intl/fastft/359551

13/7/15: A Promise of a Deal = An Actual Surrender

So we finally have a 'historic' agreement on Greece. You know the details:

1. Tsipras surrendered on everything, except one thing.
2. One thing Tsipras 'won' is that the assets fund (to hold Greek Government assets in an escrow for Institutions to claim in case of default) will be based in Greece (as opposed to Luxembourg), managed still by Troika (it remains to be seen under which law).
3. IMF is in and is expected to have a new agreement with Greece past March 2016 when the current one runs out. So not a lollipop for Tsipras to bring home.
4. All conditionalities are front-loaded to precede the bailout funding and Wednesday deadline for passing these into law is confirmed. 

Bloomberg summed it up perfectly in this headline: EU Demands Complete Capitulation From Tsipras.

Remember,  Tsipras went into the last round of negotiations with the following demands:

Source: @Tom_Nuttall

And that was after he surrendered on Vat, Islands, pensions, corporation tax - all red line items for him during the referendum.

Reality of the outcome turned out to be actually worse. 

The new 'deal' involves a large quantum of debt (EUR86 billion, well in excess of Greek Government request from the ESM) and the banks bailout funding requirement has just been hiked from EUR10-25 billion to 'up to EUR50 billion', presumably to allow for some reductions in ELA. 

The new 'deal' only promises to examine debt sustainability issue. There are no writedowns, although Angela Merkel did mention that the plan does not rule out possible maturities extensions and repayment grace period extensions. This, simply, is unlikely to be enough.

The 'deal' still requires approval of the national parliaments. Which can be tricky. Here is the table of ESM capital subscriptions by funding nation:

Tsipras also lost on all fronts when it comes to privatisations. In fact, even if the future Government lags on these, the EU can now effectively cease control over the assets in the fund and sell these / monetise to the fund itself. Not sure as per modalities of this, but...

Detailed privatisation targets are to be re-set. Let's hope they will be somewhat more realistic (home hardly justified in the context of the new 'deal'):

To achieve this, EU had to literally blackmail Tsipras by rumour and demands:

Source: @TheStalwart

Source: @Frances_Coppola

And so the road to the can kicking (not even resolution) is still arduous:

 Source: @katie_martin_fxs

My view: the crisis has not gone away for three reasons:

1. Short-term, we are likely to see new elections in Greece prior to the end of 2015;
2. We are also likely to see more disagreements between the euro states and Greece on modalities of the programme; and
3. Crucially, over the medium term, the new 'deal' is simply not addressing the key problem - debt sustainability. 

For the fifth year in a row, EU opts for kicking the same can down the same road.